


Run

by Kyriathe



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, And broken, Arena AU, Attempted Break Up, Established Relationship, Galra Keith (Voltron), Multi, Non-Consensual Body Modification (mentioned), Shiro being an emotional disaster, the AU is mostly an excuse to have them together, traumatised characters, unhealthy relationship dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-09-29 20:22:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17210291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kyriathe/pseuds/Kyriathe
Summary: In the arena, they were a team. In their cell, they were something else. Now they've escaped, Shiro thinks Keith and Lance don't need him any more. The best thing to do is make the break clean and fast, not let it linger.Keith and Lance disagree.(An AU where Lance gets captured months later and thrown in Shiro's cell and Keith has always been a Galra halfbreed and together they were all Champions.)





	Run

They all wake up quickly now, from asleep to alert with nothing between, a lesson learnt in very little time at all in the cells of the arena when any noise could be the guards coming to take someone to battle, or worse. This time is no different when Shiro looks in on his former cellmates, in the alcove they've been resting in- even the familiar noises he makes moving around are enough to have Keith and Lance's eyes snap open, near enough simultaneously.

"Just me," he says softly, and they both relax, Lance's hand falling away from the pistol he keeps tucked behind their sleeping area, Keith uncurling from the crouch he'd been about to launch himself from. In the dim lighting they're all more comfortable with now he can see the fading purple light of the alien tech that binds them all, as well as the glimmer of yellow from Keith's eyes.

He's proud to notice that even out here, two days away from the rest of the Galra and cramped in their tiny ship, Keith still puts himself in front of Lance, and Lance still lets him. He'd worried for their teamwork outside the arena, once relief set in and they potentially got overconfident, but the habit seems to be set. Habit and affection, given the way Lance leans forward, draping himself over Keith's back in a familiar way once the moment of tension passes, and Keith still seems willing to let him. It's a long way from how he remembers them acting the first time they'd all been in the same room together. Then again, at the time, Keith had just been another Galra to them. He can't blame Lance for reacting badly to purple skin when it marked the majority of their captors, or Keith for expecting a fight.

"Nothing?" Lance asks, softly, human eye half-closed, and Shiro's attention is dragged back to the present.

"Nothing yet," Shiro says, and runs his still-flesh hand through his hair. It's long and a little matted, and abruptly he misses Lance's hands in his hair, trying to untangle the knots, but that's gone now. "I should go back out there. Someone should be in the pilot seat just in case."

" _Or_ ," says Keith, pointedly, "you could come over here and actually rest."

"...I can't," Shiro says, and doesn't look as the two of them sigh at the same time. He knows they don't entirely understand his refusal to let them get close any more or the way he's been avoiding them for the last two days, but Shiro knows what will happen. Now they're free, they'll realise they don't need him to survive any more. Whatever affection they think they have for him, it will fade with time. He just... needs to wait it out. "They might come after us still." 

Lance is the first to speak, as he so often is. "This sucks. We're finally out of there, and you're _still_ pulling this shit." He gives Shiro a clearly disappointed look; even months in Galra custody apparently can't stop Lance's expressions being transparently obvious. "You're getting _worse_ , even. C'mon, Shiro, I know you always held back a little but you still used to sleep with us all the time."

He had. He can't even remember how they went from sleeping close to sleeping next to each other to abandoning the cots to sleep in a pile, but by the end it had been the only way they all got sleep. It still is, but Shiro will get used to not having it. He shakes his head, focussing just past Lance's shoulder. "It's time I got out the habit." 

"Shiro." Keith is sharper, but Shiro's known him for four months and that's more than enough time to hear the undercurrent of hurt that Keith is trying to hide. Lance can obviously hear it too, putting a little more weight on Keith. "Is it because of me?" Keith asks, voice steady but still with that pained thread.

"Why would it be you?" Lance asks.

"No, of course not," Shiro says, and the responses overlap, quick and with equal amounts of disbelief.

"I'm still half-Galra, and that- maybe it's just going to keep bringing up bad memories" Keith says, slowly. "You could- _should_ leave me behind."

It's a very Keith move, and both he and Lance recognise it. Lance curls around Keith more tightly, and for a moment Shiro almost goes to them, because that's how it always was in their cell, compensating for each others' brittle points as best as possible. But the moment passes, and he's taken one step closer and no more, because they're not in the cell any more. Lance and Keith are resilient, in a way Shiro envies. They'll be fine without him.

"Oh no you don't. If I only get to keep one self-sacrificing idiot, I'm keeping the warmer one," Lance finally says, and only the three of them would ever recognise the affection under the words. The affection that isn't there when Lance looks at Shiro, clearly angry, and says very deliberately, "And the one who isn't making an ass of himself and hurting all of us for no reason." He lies back down, pulling Keith with him, "come down here, short dark and hideous. If _someone_ doesn't want our company, that's fine."

It's what Shiro wants. It just hurts, watching Lance deliberately position the two of them to leave no room at all in the nest of fabric, Keith following him down with only a short look over his shoulder at Shiro. He goes back to the seat, like he planned to all along, but it doesn't feel like a victory when he can hear low murmurs behind him, Lance's higher and longer than Keith's short replies.

* * *

He dreams of the first time he met Lance. This time, when they throw someone into into his cell, brown hair and human skin, he doesn't have the moment of "Matt" he had in reality. Instead, with the certainty of dreams, he knows Lance from the start, blue eyes and shaky grin.

This time, Lance doesn't dodge his attack when the guards come to drag him away- but they take him anyway, leg streaming blood. And when they toss the body back in after, Lance doesn't raise his head, swallowing nausea and pain to smile at Shiro, give him a thumbs up for that first victory. Blank eyes stare up at him from a slack face, and his cell floor is awash in blood-

* * *

Shiro wakes up, shivering, and for a moment reaches out in panic when there's no warm weight on either side of him, no easily heard breathing to remind him that he's alive and so are the two people under his care. But the cold, unforgiving planes of the pilot seat are unfamiliar enough to drag him up into consciousness, remind him of where he is and why. He takes a few deep breaths, and turns.

He can see into the alcove, if he sits at an awkward angle, and he gives into letting himself watch for a little while. Keith and Lance are a nearly indistinguishable mound in the bedding they managed to put together, the low light blurring out details, but he can see enough to reassure himself they're okay.

He's a few minutes in when he realises he can see a faint purple glow. Too small for Keith, and Shiro's arm is over here in exile with him, which means Lance's other eye is active.

Which means Lance is watching him stare, probably in much sharper detail than Shiro has.

Some people would say Lance got away the lightest of them, and with the least useful adjustment. Shiro lost his arm and gained a weapon. Keith got to keep his legs, but the tech that makes him faster and more agile is embedded in them, stretches from ankle to at least the knee- at least, that's how far the ominous purple glow shows up under the skin. Lance just lost one eye.

Shiro knows better. Lance is vain, for better or worse, and now his eyes are mismatched and the skin around the left is scarred. Unlike Shiro and Keith, he can't easily cover it with clothing, without making it just as obvious. And the eye-

"I think they rewired my brain to make it work," Lance says in his memory, a dark joke told in a relentlessly cheerful tone, defying pity. "But hey, I always wanted x-ray vision. Not that I got that, either, but heat vision works. Plus, I got zoom mode."

Shiro is still staring at Lance, he realises, but Lance has clearly grown bored with looking back, glow extinguished.

* * *

This time, when Lance says "I think they rewired my brain," it's a low monotone. Keith is sprawled lifeless at Lance's feet, and Shiro should have fought harder to keep them both safe-

* * *

When he wakes again, Lance is stood close, pretending to look through the viewscreen at the strange stars outside.

"Why are you so insistent on this?" he asks, one arm wrapped around himself, not looking at Shiro at all. "Was it something we said? _I_ said? Are you fed up with me?"

Shiro shakes his head, silent. Lance can be a bit excessive, sometimes, but that's part of the charm. Lance is so very alive, a loud and bright reminder that Shiro is too, and that's one reason he can't do this. He'll only drag Lance down, and Keith too.

"I don't get you." Lance rubs the scars at the corner of his eye, an acquired gesture of pain. "We both love you. You're either insanely good at pretending, or you love us. Why do you have to make it so difficult?" There's a whine in his voice, underlying the words, although much fainter than it would have been once. Lance is still Lance, but the arena forced him to grow up fast and there wasn't much time or energy to spare on complaining.

"I'm trying to make it easier," Shiro settles on as an explanation, because he is. He's trying to make it easier for them to let go of him, before they waste too much time trying to hold on when they don't really want to. "You'll understand, one day."

Lance snorts, and turns away from the viewscreen, back towards Keith. He still isn't looking at Shiro, but he pauses long enough for his expression to register, unimpressed and stubbornly resolved. "No, I won't. But when _you_ understand we're not going anywhere, we'll be waiting."

* * *

This time, it's Keith. He growls, and Lance falls beneath teeth and claws, because Shiro couldn't help one lonely teenage alien and he shattered in the arena-

* * *

He's glad when he snaps awake, aware of something in his space even on the borders of sleep. Hard-won habit keeps him silent and still, even when he registers a warm, clawed hand on his face and opens his own eyes to see yellow and purple far too close- and he's glad a moment later, when his brain catches up and he registers Keith.

He must have been in a bad way, to put that little notch between Keith's eyebrows, the faint downturn on Keith's lips. Shiro is just grateful he didn't flinch back from the touch, especially after that question earlier. Why would Keith think being half-Galra mattered to either of them, after their time of fighting and bleeding and recovering together? Instead, after a moment, he reaches up slowly to pull Keith's hand down, holding onto it for a moment before he makes himself let go.

If he's going to separate from Keith and Lance, he needs to get used to not looking for touch.

Keith pulls back, and Shiro sees the echoing hurt in the way his eyes widen for a moment, before the walls come down and his frown becomes something closer to a snarl. Keith is very bad at controlling his emotion and feigning calm, but he's much better at making all his emotions look like anger. Some kind of survival tactic for surviving around the other Galra, Shiro assumes, given the hints they have, but Keith doesn't often drop them and they don't ask. It's clearly a sensitive topic.

"I'm fine," Shiro says, to forestall anything else. "You don't need to worry about me."

That gets some of the hurt smoothed over, but not all of it. Keith's voice is still low and unnaturally even, no inflection at all. "Don't I?" He isn't moving further away, still looking into Shiro's eyes. "Because I love you, Shiro, but from where I'm stood you're not doing all that well."

Keith rarely declares his affections that way, but when he does, he's serious. Shiro has to stamp out the warm feeling that rises on hearing it, because Keith can't mean it. "One of us has to keep a clear head, and you and Lance need to rest."

"That isn't what I meant," Keith says, a little frustrated heat slipping into his tone. "Lance says you think this is making things easier."

"It is."

" _How_?" It's incredulous, almost a yelp, and Keith flinches and looks over at the alcove, clearly hoping he hasn't woken Lance. When nothing moves, he sighs, folding his arms over his chest, forcing his voice back to quiet. "You and Lance are all I have. How does it make it _easier_ to lose one of you, for a reason you won't even explain properly?"

"You still have me," Shiro says, because of course he wouldn't leave either of them entirely. He can't. They're all he has, too. 

"Do I?" Keith doesn't sound impressed, either, and he finally moves away. Shiro takes a deeper breath, but it doesn't help. The air feels stale and cold, Keith taking the warmth with him back to the alcove.

* * *

Keith dives in front of him. Shiro remembers it happening a few times- they'd all done it, in emergencies- but this time Keith doesn't get up. He lies in the sand, and Lance falls to his knees the other side and looks up, expression accusing-

* * *

He wakes up because they forget to keep their voices down.

"I don't know," Keith says, and the frustration and hurt is clear, now. It's good to hear him open up to someone, particularly Lance; he doesn't doubt the two of them are close now, but it can still sometimes be volatile between Keith's defensiveness and Lance's frequent moments of accidental insensitivity. Shiro is- he _was_ working on it, but he hopes they can still work it out together without him. "He's just... closing off. I don't know how else to get through to him."

There's silence behind him, but Shiro can fill in the gaps. Lance is always tactile when he's trying to comfort people; he'll be stroking Keith's hair back, most likely or taking his hand and running his fingers over Keith's claws. But eventually Lance replies, heavily, "I don't, either. I don't know why he doesn't trust us."

He almost speaks up in his own defence, then, because of course he trusts them. They've watched his back for four months, learnt to work in any combination of pairs or all three of them, and there is no-one he would rather have with him there if he has to have anyone. He's spent time with them, knows them almost better than he knows himself. But speaking up would remind them he's there, and he's not sure he's up to more anger, right now.

When he tunes back in, Lance has clearly just said something self-deprecating because Keith makes an irritated noise. "I don't need you to be Shiro. I need you to be Lance, and _Shiro_ to be Shiro."

"I am the only one of us awesome enough to be Lance, true." It's not quite as cocky as usual, but it's an attempt. "And you're the only one of us purple enough to be Keith."

"...Really? That's all you can come up with?" Keith asks, tone flatter now. "Why do I bother being nice to you?"

"You love me. You know I like you the way you are, purple and all. Also, you can't hate a face this attractive." Lance must be feeling better, if he's using his looks to tease. They're a sensitive topic, usually.

"I can always change my mind," Keith threatens, but the familiarity seems to have him relaxing a little.

"Love you too," Lance replies, and he's probably giving Keith that smile, the one that's just a little softer than usual and has his eyebrows pulled down in a way that makes him look just a little confused by his own feelings. "You're stuck with me, now. And Shiro is stuck with us. We'll just have to make sure he knows it."

He almost goes over to them, then, because two days in and he already misses being able to speak up, tease them both in a very serious tone about how sweet it is they care for each other until they realise he _is_ teasing. But he's tired, and the chair is less unforgiving than usual, and he doesn't want to disturb their moment.

* * *

They don't put anyone else in with him in the arena, or his cell. It's just him, and endless fighting, on and on and on, and Shiro lets pieces of himself go one by one until there's nothing left but fighting.

It's harder than he thought it would be.

* * *

He wakes up to both of them leaning against the consoles, looking down at him.

They still make a startlingly intimidating team, even though neither of them should look threatening at all. They're both too thin from the arena, running to wiry rather than Shiro's own bulk, and the black undersuits the arena dressed them in makes that very clear. Both of them still look _young_ , too young for the scars they wear inside and out, and if Shiro is being honest they both look a little fragile still, dark shadows under eyes and every expression just a little brittle. But their eyes are hard- too hard, in Shiro's opinion- and even here in private, there's a constant tension to even Lance's shoulders. 

They're also holding hands, which is usually a bad sign. If they've decided to team up on him, it must be important.

"So," Lance starts, falsely casual. "Between us, we've decided that you're an idiot."

"I thought we were going to be more tactful than that," Keith follows up, giving Lance a sideways look. "But he has a point. What exactly are you trying to do by cutting us off?"

Shiro looks between them, feeling trapped, and maybe a little resentful. He's not the one making things difficult, here. "Does it matter?"

"Uh, I'd say yes? Because it looks to me like all you're really doing is hurting yourself for no reason." Lance drags Keith's hand up, trying to gesture. "I don't even know why. Are you trying to punish yourself for something? Do you just think you're that unlikeable? Because if it's not _Keith_ , which we all know it isn't, and it's not _me_ -"

"Which it isn't," Keith cuts in, probably because Lance looks like he might be reconsidering that idea he's not. "But if it's not us, it's you. You're the one who always talks about working through it as a team, Shiro. Why aren't you doing that?"

"You're a team," Shiro says. "A great team, even, when you work together. You don't need me."

The four words slip out, and he wants them back, they give too much away. Lance and Keith look at each other, and then back at him with very similar expressions of angry bewilderment. Proving his point, Shiro feels, although they don't seem to agree.

"Oh, come on," Lance groans, free hand coming up to cover his eyes. "Are you telling me we've spent the last two days all being miserable because you're _insecure_?"

That's a very unfair assessment of the situation in Shiro's opinion, and also somewhat hypocritical coming from Lance, but he isn't given time to argue before Keith is leaning forward, frowning.

"So it's not because you don't want to be with us." Keith says it slowly, like he's testing the words for truth. 

"Of course it isn't," Lance replies before Shiro can. "Who wouldn't want to be with us, right?" Oddly, Lance is taking the revelation pretty well, now. He certainly sounds a lot more confident, and it strikes Shiro that maybe he wasn't so far off in calling Lance hypocritical for calling out insecurity. "He's just trying to pull away before we hurt him by cutting him off."

Keith is still frowning. "But we wouldn't do that."

"You know that, and I know that, but apparently he's convinced himself otherwise." Lance and Keith seem happy to talk about him like he isn't there listening, and he has to admit, it doesn't feel all that good.

"I'm right here," he gets out, short and sharp, and they look at him again.

"Who says we don't need you?" Keith asks, and Shiro-

Shiro doesn't have an answer. He hates it when Keith does that, goes for the soft spot so bluntly, because he so often ends up right. Keith leans forward to take his hand, and Shiro lets him, because he's missed touch so much. Lance reaches for the other hand, tactile as usual, thumb moving restlessly over the back of Shiro's hand.

"We'd never have made it out of there without you." Keith says, flatly, not allowing for argument. "I'm-"

"Reckless," Lance supplies. "Hot-headed. Temperamental."

" _Thank you_." There's actually a faint growl to Keith's words, but he's not showing teeth, so Lance just grins. "And _Lance_ is easily distracted, never takes anything seriously, and has no idea what an appropriate moment looks like."

"I take important things seriously," Lance says, apparently just to prove the point.

"You're what keeps us- both of us- stable," Keith says, ignoring Lance. Patience, yielding focus. Maybe Shiro has had a good influence, even if he's not sure he approves of that focus being aimed at him. "You're the one who tells us we can do something. When do you think we'll ever stop needing that?"

"You can tell each other that," Shiro attempts, but Lance laughs.

"I'm more challenging than encouraging, with Keith. He doesn't tell me anything, just expects me to do it." Lance shrugs. "And that works most of the time, now we know each other better. But I'm not going to lie, I like being _told_ I'm useful. Even if Keith gets good at that, two people is still way better than one, for me."

"And it's going to play havoc with our teamwork if you're not with us," Keith says, firmly. "We _can_ fight as a pair, but we're still most effective as a three." Trust Keith to think of it pragmatically. "The Galra- never thought of me as particularly useful. But you're the one who showed me I could be more than that."

It must be serious, if Keith is bringing history into it and Lance is being honest about his need for approval. Shiro wavers, looking between them. "You're not going to give this up, are you?"

"Nope." Lance over-pronounces the P. "Besides, _you_ need _us_. Who else is going to watch your back? And Keith just ran away from his entire life. We're all he's got. I'm not going to let you mess him up now." Lance doesn't mention himself, but he's talked often enough about his family and friends on Earth for Shiro to know Lance is not as alone as he and Keith are. Shiro also knows enough to fill in the gaps, that Lance has always felt overlooked. Keith and Shiro might be the first people who have genuinely needed him, and Lance seems to need that. And trying to fit back in with people who've never gone through what Lance has now- perhaps Lance already worries that's going to be isolating, as well.

Shiro sighs. He's supposed to be the sensible one of them, and none of this is sensible. Relationships born from shared trauma and forced intimacy never are, and he can't help fearing the messy collapse without the arena to focus and distract them, or the effort it's going to take to untangle codependency from genuine affection. But- he looks at Keith, still frowning, and Lance, still trying to smile, and they've both lost so much already. He remembers the times when Keith would curl up in a far corner and spit angry words to make them go away, and the times when Lance would stop talking, and the times he'd come so close to falling back into the narrow focus of just surviving and nothing else- and the times they'd all brought each other back, as well. He remembers soothing them through nightmares, and nightmares of his own. And they've all always done better at accepting each others scars and changes than their own, especially when it comes to the Galra-implanted technology. Lance has a point, honestly. He's not sure how he'll cope alone, after months of having two people to rely on.

"We're all _we_ have," Keith says. "And I don't think that's going to change any time soon."

It's the tension in them both that does it, the look that they're carrying too much and are about to give way if he doesn't take some of it off them. He can't leave them to fall, if he can help it at all. They mean too much to him for that. "You're going to regret this," he says, in soft warning. "If you're going to insist on this, I'm going to insist we do it properly and talk about things, later."

"Then we can regret it later, when we're not all exhausted and running on adrenaline." Lance shrugs. 

"Or not waste time on regretting it," Keith adds. "But we are exhausted."

They look it. And Shiro's had even less sleep, although he seems to deal with it better than Lance, at least. "You're sure?"

" _Yes_ ," Lance and Keith both say, Lance with an eyeroll and Keith with narrowed eyes and both of them decisive.

"...Then I surrender," Shiro says, and he'd actually put his hands up but they're still being held. He doesn't think he imagines the way they both relax, though, an easing of the lines, a less tight grip on him and each other. "I'm too tired to keep arguing, and I can't deny that you've made some good points."

"Then come sleep." Lance gives him a look that promises trouble later. "But don't think you're off the hook just yet. You owe us, for this." Ominous, but Shiro supposes he deserves it, a little.

He doesn't resist when they try to pull him up. Or when they lead him to the bed, Keith pulling and Lance pushing. He hesitates before lying down, but only as long as it takes Keith to give him a hurt look, Lance to make a frustrated noise. Once he's down, they settle in either side of him, one to each shoulder. Lance ends up on the Galra arm side, but he's never minded it before and he doesn't seem to mind having it around his shoulders this time, either, head on Shiro's chest. 

"Better," Lance says, and yawns. "The bed feels kind of empty without you to take up all the space, you know? Keith is warm enough for all of us, but there's not that much of him."

"I'm still growing." Keith can't even manage a proper growl, although that might partly be the way his face is pressed against Shiro's arm. "And at least I'm more comfortable to sleep with than you."

It's familiar bickering, more friendly than not, and it hasn't stopped them holding hands over his chest. Shiro closes his eyes, and he's comfortable for the first time in days. He waits for the breathing either side of him to deepen, the bodies either side of him to relax a little more. He's always been easier waiting for them to be asleep before he lets himself go too, and it's no different out here than it was in their cell. Even exhausted, these are the people he'd do anything for, and waiting a little longer to sleep isn't that hard. "Love you," he says, softly, once he's sure they're under, and it's the first time he's risked admitting it so simply, in words rather than actions. They don't respond, already asleep, but that's okay. He already knows how they'd reply.

* * *

He doesn't dream at all.

**Author's Note:**

> This has been done and I don't care, it was mostly fun to write, but holy shit it got away from me. Mostly because confrontations are hard for me to write, I think, and they're all very stubborn, in different ways.
> 
> I did start getting into what got Lance off earth in the first place, and back to a more canon timeline, but uh. That got very Different to the tone of this, so I left it for maybe later as a short extra. IDK. This one stands as is, I hope.
> 
> Also not gonna lie I love Galra Keith and also a Lance who has to deal with visible scarring. (plus, sniper. I know usually Lance gets the legs, but built in sniper scope seemed made for him and Sendak's got an eye too so they must know how to do it.)
> 
> Now to try and decide what to finish next. if you want to talk I'm [here on tumblr](https://adistantsea.tumblr.com/) or [here on pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.io/adistantsea)


End file.
